I've been tagged! . . .

I've been tagged by both Breadgirl and Kee to complete the meme begun by Mac that's doing the rounds at the moment so I guess I'd better knuckle down and get on with it. Thanks to both of you for thinking of me.

The rules of the meme as posted on Mac's blog 'Mulier Fortis' are:

Name your three most favourite prayers, and explain why they're your favourites. Then tag five bloggers - give them a link, and then go and tell them they have been tagged. Finally, tell the person who tagged you that you've completed the meme... The Liturgy and the Sacraments are off limits here. I'm more interested in people's favourite devotional prayers.

As this meme has been around for a little while now, it's very difficult to choose prayers that no one has chosen so I'm not going to avoid choosing the Hail Mary as my first and most obvious choice. It's the first prayer that I think of when I want to pray for any reason. Whether it's a quick 'arrow' prayer during the day when something happens or as part of the Rosary when I have more time to prayer it's always the first prayer that enters my head.

My second choice is the Prayer of St Richard of Chichester. This is one of those prayers that I remember from childhood. Not being brought up a Catholic I didn't attend a Catholic school but the local county primary school and each morning we had assembly which always included hymns and prayers and this was one of the prayers that we prayed often and has stayed with me.

Prayer of St. Richard of Chichester

Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ,

For all the benefits thou hast won for me,

For all the pains and insults thou hast borne for me.

O most merciful Redeemer, Friend, and Brother,

May I know thee more clearly, Love thee more dearly,

And follow thee more nearly: For ever and ever. Amen.

St. Richard Chichester (1197-1253)

My third prayer is another prayer from my childhood. I think prayers learnt as a child are never forgotten and we grow into understanding them which is why I think it is so important to teach our children the formal prayers that we learnt ourselves.

Being brought up in the Anglican church, before receiving 'Holy Communion' we would prayer Thomas Cranmer's 'Prayer of humble access'.

We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord,

trusting in our own righteousness,

but in your manifold and great mercies.

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.

But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy:

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,

and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,

and our souls washed through his most precious blood,

and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

This may be heretical but I still think that beautiful prayer says so much more than our own much briefer, 'Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed.'

That's the meme completed, now comes the hard part - who to tag (excluding clergy) as most of the people I would have tagged have already taken part.

I tag:

Battlements of Rubies

Campionist

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Mother's Pride

In Terra Aliena

Some of these bloggers have been fairly quiet recently so maybe it might encourage them to get blogging again.

Help, I've been tagged!

Oh dear, I've been tagged! Well, at least they let me out!

I've seen this meme on a few blogs but now I've been tagged by Mulier fortis. I'm not very good at this sort of thing so this is a joint effort, the result of a bit of 'brainstorming' over coffee at work this morning. (Now if you'd asked me something like what are your 7 favourite ice cream flavours, or name 7 ways you'd improve Marks & Sparks' lingerie department, there'd be no stopping me!)

Here goes:

"What are the seven things that we, as Catholics, want or would like to see happen?"

1. A return to silence in church (at the appropriate times) and a general increase in reverence.

2. Improved catechesis, beginning naturally in our Catholic schools.

3. An awareness and understanding by adults that the teachings of the Church are not optional; a list for you to choose which bits you like and will adhere to and which you'll just ignore as 'they're not really important anyway, nobody bothers with that nowadays do they?'. (Catechesis again!)

4. An acceptance of the authority of the Church and the Magisterium.

5. 'Nursery rhyme hymns' are OK for tiny-tots but 'grown-up hymns' for 'grown-ups' please.

6. A sensible attitude to dress in Church. (I'm talking about the laity here! :)) I don't mean floor-length skirts and long-sleeved, buttoned-to-the-neck blouses for women and best suits for the men but what happened to 'Sunday Best' and making a little bit of an effort. We could do without the cropped tops and short shorts or the ripped jeans but thankfully they are fairly rare in our parish. Just plain ordinary clothes will do nicely, thank you.

7. Finally, a silly one - Nobody over 5' 2" tall sitting in front of me at Mass on Sunday when the benches are full and no matter how much I shuffle around from side to side I can't see what's happening in the sanctuary.

Now, I have to tag some people myself. That's almost as difficult as doing the meme. Being a fairly new blogger, I'm not sure if I know many others well enough to ask them but I'll have a go; I tag:

Fr Terry at Horsham because I always follow his blog and would be interested to hear his ideas.

Catholic Student at Veni Sancte Spiritus because it might get him blogging again - he's used that 'settling into new student accommodation' excuse for too long now!

Catholicmomof10militant and James and Ella Preest at Catholic and Loving it! who I'm sure will have no difficulty in coming up with 7 things.

My first 'Meme'

For those of you not familiar with blogs (apart from dipping into this one occasionally), you are probably wondering what on earth a 'meme' is.

I've seen several good descriptions on various blogs so I'll try and roll them all together in this explanation:

A meme is when someone challenges you to answer on your blog a list of given questions. They can be about all manner of subjects and are often a way of getting people to talk about their own views on a subject or their own likes and dislikes such as, name your favourite book, film, TV programme etc. or which fictional character would you most like to be? or which period in history would you have liked to have lived in? I hope you get the general idea.

The original author 'tags' a few friends to do the meme and then they in turn 'tag' other friends and so it is passed on.

Often I find the answers quite interesting or amusing. I saw this one on a blog I've started looking at recently and, as it was open to all, I thought I'd have a go myself.

This one is all about where you were when certain things happened:

Assassination of President Kennedy - November 1963

Now I would have been ten years old and still at primary school when this happened and although I have vague memory of it I can't honestly say that I remember it from 1963 or whether I think I remember it because of all the newsreels of the time that I've seen on numerous occasions since that day.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany - 4 July 1990
Again, I'm afraid I can't say I remember much about this either so I'm going to cheat on this one and comment on where I was when England WON the World Cup by beating Germany in 1966. I remember this well as I was on Guide camp and our Guide Captain had brought her husband along to help (they had only recently married I seem to remember) and I have a memory of him and the other adults clustered around a transistor radio listening to the match and the shouts of joy at the final result.

Margaret Thatcher's Resignation - 22nd November 1990
I don't remember where I was but I remember the sense of jubilation that surrounded the resignation from her opponents and the rather pathetic figure she made in her speech outside Number 10 - or am I just imagining that? So hard to tell, memories are strange things.

Princess Diana's death - 31st August 1997

I definitely remember this very well. We were in the car on the way to Mass. Adrian's sister Marie was visiting us at the time and we were all stunned when we heard the news announcement. First of all the news that there had been a serious accident and that Princess Diana was badly injured but the incredulity that she had actually died was palpable. We remained glued to the TV and radio for a large part of the day.

Attack on the Twin Towers - 11th September 2001

Again, I can remember exactly when I heard this. I was in the presbytery and we were in the middle of a meeting - grouped around the dining table. One of those present has received a text from her daughter saying that there'd been a terrible disaster in the USA and to turn the TV on. Another text message followed soon afterwards and after the meeting we went and switched on the TV to catch the news coverage.

The election of Pope Benedict XVI - 19th April 2005

I was sitting at home in the study watching the TV and remember that the election was over more quickly than the commentators expected it to be with the plumes of smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel and the announcement, 'Habemus Papam'. Frantic texting to friends who may not have caught the news and watching TV for the immediate reactions from around the world.